In a Stranger's Arms

by Hale Deborah

  By the time Manning released her lips, she felt as flushed and weightless as she once had at the end of a long, hot soak. Not to mention other sensations, entirely new in her experience.

  He blazed a trail of kisses, starting at her chin and moving down her throat. To prevent him from wrenching his neck, Caddie had to stretch herself up to meet his lips. Her insides quivered like jelly when she realized his ultimate goal.

  Manning caught the top of her shimmy between his teeth and pulled it down, setting one breast at liberty. His whisker-stubbled cheek rasped against the smooth, rounded flesh of her bosom, until his questing lips located the exquisitely sensitive crest and closed over it.

  As her head began to spin in a dusky haze of pleasure, Caddie realized she’d forgotten how to breathe. Manning caressed her nipple with his tongue until her veins seemed to pulse with tawny moonshine. She whimpered her delight and her need.

  When her lover paused for breath, Caddie fumbled out of her shimmy to allow him easy access to her other breast, which ached for his attention.

  “Get me out of this damned shirt!” Manning’s voice had lost its earlier teasing drawl, becoming tight and urgent.

  “Careful now, you’ll hurt your hands,” Caddie cautioned, easing one sleeve off over his bandages, then the other.

  “You’re not going to stop there, are you?”

  Even with the darkness deepening, Caddie fancied she could see a flash of quicksilver in Manning’s eyes as he challenged her.

  “Not if you don’t want me to.” Knowing there was little chance of that, she dispatched the last of his clothing, and hers, to the floor.

  She hesitated for a heartbeat before climbing back onto the bed. She’d already failed once as a wife, without truly understanding how or why. What if she did everything she could to please Manning and it still wasn’t enough?

  Winding its way out of the shadows, his voice soothed her fears and rekindled her anticipation. “You aren’t going to get all shy on me now, are you? Not after you’ve got parts of me burning worse than my hands?”

  He probably wouldn’t remember anything in the morning, Caddie told herself. Something in that thought saddened her, even as it seared away her last shreds of restraint. She wanted to make this a night she would remember, even if a sober Manning decided to keep her at arm’s length again.

  “I reckon I might know how to quench that fire of yours.” She slid her naked body up the length of his, relishing the smooth, delicious friction.

  “Mmm...” Manning writhed beneath her. “You sure know how to stoke it up, sweet lady.”

  “I don’t want to be sweet tonight.” Her tongue made a circuit of his lips then slipped between as part of a hot hard kiss. “And I sure don’t want to be a lady.”

  They kissed some more. She touched him all over, with her hands at first. Then, as his eager reaction made her braver, with her lips and tongue.

  She felt the explosive heat building within him, which fired a back burn in her. At last she slid over him, taking him inside her.

  A faint sense of regret tugged at Caddie, for she had never associated this marriage act with pleasure. She pushed the thought from her mind. She would partake of Manning’s pleasure, satisfied that she had done everything possible to make it good for him.

  But what was happening to her?

  Manning’s hard length inside her coaxed Caddie’s body to the same wondrous state she’d experienced when he kissed her, and when he favored her breasts with his mouth, only... so much more... intense.

  A fierce yearning radiated from the place where his body became one with hers. He had not invaded her sanctum. She had invited him to become part of her, never guessing it could feel like this.

  Manning flexed his hips, pulling slightly away then plunging in again. Ripples of bliss washed through Caddie, crashing harder and faster as Manning bucked beneath her, his breath gusting in her ear like a storm wind.

  Keening for something she could not imagine, she pressed her face into the hollow of his broad shoulder. He filled her with one final deep thrust, then he shuddered under her as though he might break into a million pieces. A hoarse cry broke from his lips, pained as a confession extracted under torture.

  Did her ears deceive her, or had he uttered the word love?

  With the force of a hurricane, ecstasy swept Caddie clean out of her thrashing body. Some while later, it washed her up, spent and sated, on the warm shore of Manning Forbes.

  From the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, she could tell he’d fallen asleep. Caddie couldn’t make up her mind whether to be glad or sorry.

  Of course she wanted him to sleep while he could, escaping the pain of his bums. But a selfish streak in her wished she could snuggle against him and talk. Learn everything she could about him. Share parts of herself she’d never shared with anyone else. Plan their future together as a real family, with Tem and Varina... and perhaps other children, bred in the kind of passion they’d discovered tonight.

  With a sigh of contentment unlike any she’d felt before, Caddie surrendered herself to sleep.

  She could hardly wait to wake up to a new day and a new happy future.

  Chapter Sixteen

  MANNING WOKE THE next morning to a temple-splitting headache and fierce stinging in his palms. Both were mere annoyances compared to the crushing burden of guilt on his conscience.

  He tried to keep from looking at Caddie, splendidly naked in the soft first light of day. Sometime during the night she had rolled off him. But her head still rested in the hollow of his shoulder, as though divine providence had fashioned that part of his body for just such a purpose.

  The gentle swell of her breasts pressed against his side, beneath his lowest rib. It reminded him of the old Bible story of Genesis. He understood now that the Lord’s final and most perfect creation had been woman.

  But there was more to the story. Beautiful Eve had tempted Adam into sin. In that golden dawn so dark with regrets, Manning could guess how. She’d simply offered him a taste of paradise.

  Much as he would have liked to soothe his guilt by blaming last night on Caddie or on the whiskey, Manning knew better. This divine, desirable woman was in his bed for one reason only, because he had wanted her there. Had wanted her there, truth to tell, from the first night he’d slept under Delbert Marsh’s roof.

  Now here he was, three months later, sleeping under Delbert Marsh’s roof, perhaps in Delbert Marsh’s own bed. With the man’s wife curled up naked beside him, the musk of their lovemaking filling his nostrils and making him want her all over again.

  He’d longed for her every night for three months, yet at that moment he longed for her more fiercely than ever. Because she had given him a foretaste of heaven.

  Now he glimpsed the fires of hell.

  Somewhere, Manning had read about the witch trials of early colonial days. Most of the accused witches had been hanged, but one had been pressed to death—a slab of wood laid over her, on which large rocks were set one by one until their weight crushed the life out of her.

  This morning Manning felt as if he was being pressed to death. It didn’t help matters that he had quarried every one of the stones himself and piled them on.

  A lifetime of sober, selfless penance might have absolved him of killing Delbert Marsh in the first place. Nothing he could do would acquit him of stealing the man’s home, his family and his wife. If he kept on the way he was going, Manning feared the day would come when he’d congratulate himself for what he’d done. Be willing to do it again if Marsh suddenly returned from the dead to reclaim the life of which Manning had robbed him.

  The longer he continued to lie there beside Caddie, stealing glances at her heavenly body and reliving what he could remember of their shadowy, storm-tossed lovemaking, the swifter would come the day of his ultimate damnation.

  As gently as he could manage, given the state of his head and his hands, he eased himself away from her. The whisper of her rich mahogany hair ag
ainst his skin was almost too sweet an enticement to resist. He hated himself for surrendering to his weakness last night. Hated himself for wanting her more than salvation itself. Before he had dragged himself from the bed and begun to fumble for his clothes, he almost hated her for being so damnably desirable.

  As if wakened by the intensity of his feelings, Caddie stirred and opened her eyes. Perhaps realizing she was naked, or recalling the abandon with which she’d given herself to him in the night, she blushed the pearly rose hue of a new dawn. Then she gazed up at him with those bewitching eyes, the color of a green Eden swathed in the silver-gray mist of creation.

  “Heading off to work so early?” Caddie asked, her smile an invitation. “You won’t be able to do a whole lot at the mill with your hands in the shape they are.”

  If he hadn’t wanted to yield to temptation so badly, Manning might have been able to keep the sharpness from his voice. “I can have a look around. See what damage has been done. Try to figure out what caused the fire.”

  If she minded his curt tone, Caddie chose to ignore it. “I reckon we both know who started that fire, and so does everyone else hereabouts. Why don’t you come back to bed, and I’ll see what I can do to make you forget your hands hurt.”

  Manning felt as if he was engaged in a tug-of-war. Him on one side with the rope biting into the seared palms of his hands, Caddie and a strong team of horses pulling on the other.

  He tried to dig in his heels. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  Caddie’s luscious lips crinkled up at one corner and sweet, seductive mischief beckoned in her eyes. “Is that so? Well, you look a little willing to me.”

  “Damn!” He didn’t need to look down to know what she was talking about. His face blazing hotter than his hands, Manning raked his trousers from the floor to cover his traitorous body.

  For good measure he turned away from Caddie, blushing more furiously still when he saw the admiring glance she cast over his bare backside. How could he resist his own baser nature when she seemed intent on taking its part? Last night had taught him that fighting his runaway desire was a losing battle. If he was to have any chance in this skirmish for his soul, he had to break up the alliance against him.

  “Let me tell you something. A man’s pretty near always willing for that sort of thing. The world would be in a damn mess if we went around acting on it whenever we felt the urge.”

  “I thought maybe last night was something more than that.” The wistful tone of her voice and the plea in her eyes tore into his gut like a load of buckshot fired at close range.

  Manning almost surrendered. But General Secret and Brigadier Guilt, ordered a suicide charge.

  “Don’t fool yourself.” He struggled in vain to dress himself. “Last night happened because I was drunk and because you felt sorry for me. Or maybe some kind of obligation.”

  That much was true at least.

  His agitation made his bandaged hands more awkward still. Manning felt himself growing more exasperated by the second at his helplessness.

  “If either of us has any sense or pride, it’s not something we’ll look to repeat.”

  His suicide charge had wounded her badly. The hurt he’d caused couldn’t have been more plain if her heart had spurted blood. Had last night meant more to her than pity or duty?

  Manning knew he didn’t dare let himself believe it, or his private civil war would be lost for sure.

  If either of them had any pride? A nauseating chill of shame settled over Caddie.

  For many years she had cherished her pride and defended it at all costs. In turn, it had come to her defense—when she’d discovered Del’s betrayal and after the fall of Richmond.

  Lately she’d begun to question whether excessive pride was such an asset, after all. She’d begged Manning’s pardon more in the three months of their marriage than she’d done Del’s in all her years as his wife. And she’d forgiven Manning more often and more readily than she’d ever forgiven Del.

  Last night she’d thrown pride and its twin sister propriety clean out the window, crawling into the man’s bed with no more invitation than his drunken ramblings and her own wishful thinking. She’d taken advantage of his susceptible state to satisfy her carnal lust and bind him tighter to her family. She’d carried on with him in ways that made her cringe to remember in the unsparing light of day.

  If ever it could be said that a woman had taken a man against his will, then that’s what she had done.

  But did he need to humiliate her quite so thoroughly to drive home his point? Caddie’s battered pride dusted itself off, shot her an indignant glare and rode to her rescue once again.

  With deliberate hauteur she rose from Manning’s bed and began to dress. “If that’s how you feel, Mr. Forbes, I suggest you stay clear of strong drink after this.”

  She ignored the glances he stole her way, taking her time to wriggle into her drawers and cover her bare breasts with her shimmy. The trousers Manning held so awkwardly before him couldn’t disguise his body’s reaction, and how helpless he was to curb it. Caddie took a measure of vindictive enjoyment in tormenting him.

  “I don’t see why you need to go acting like some old maid schoolmistress, anyhow,” she taunted. Against all sense, her hands ached to ruffle his hair just once more, to touch the firm muscles of his chest to caress the tight rounded flesh of his bare backside. “We’re legally wed, in case you’ve forgotten, and have been for a good spell now. I’m sure there’s not a soul in the world who’d take it amiss that we shared a bed for the night.”

  “Maybe I am just a Yankee prude.” Now that Caddie was decently covered, Manning allowed himself to look at her openly. “But I believe a man and a woman oughtn’t do that kind of thing unless they love each other a great deal—even if they have a piece of paper that says it’s legal.”

  Was that an invitation to confess how she felt about him? Caddie concentrated on gathering her scattered hairpins from the floor. Even if she could sort out her hopelessly tangled emotions and decide that what she felt for him was love, would she dare make herself vulnerable by admitting it?

  Fortunately she had to hold the pins between her lips while she twisted her hair into a tight knot on the top of her head. Otherwise some rash admission might have slipped out—a pitiful plea for him to keep on bedding her.

  By the time she was able to talk again, she’d managed to marshal her defenses. “No need to run on about it. You’ve made your feelings on the subject abundantly clear. I promise that henceforth your virtue will be safe with me.” He nodded, trying to appear dignified in spite of his undress. “I’m glad we understand one another.”

  Caddie swept him a look cold enough to freeze running water. She started to flounce out of the room, never to darken it again, supposing dust gathered an inch thick on all the furniture and the windows grew too dirty to see through.

  “Er... Caddie?”

  “Yes, sir?’” She spun and faced him, taking spiteful pleasure in being fully dressed while he was so thoroughly exposed.

  “You removed my clothes,” he growled. “I think the least you could do is help me put them back on again.”

  Caddie heaved an impatient sigh, as if he’d asked her to perform some odious chore. “Very well. As long as you aren’t afraid I’ll take unwelcome liberties with your person?”

  He shot her a wry look. “Just help me dress, please.”

  It sounded so easy.

  Much as Caddie wanted to get a little of her own back at the expense of Manning’s modesty and independence, she could not enjoy an undertaking that roused so many strong feelings in her. The most intense being regret.

  She’d spoiled everything with her haste to consummate their marriage for all the wrong reasons. Protest though he might, she knew, in the way women throughout history had known, when a man was drawn to her. If only she’d just bided her time and let that tightly clenched bud blossom on its own, Manning might have welcomed her into his bed under m
ore congenial circumstances.

  With this mortifying finale to their lovemaking, Caddie doubted he would ever make another overture. Vexed as she was with him, she knew deep in her heart she wanted him to. After last night, she would burn for him until she was gray and wrinkled, and folks would be scandalized to think of a refined old lady harboring such feelings.

  Desperate to distract herself from those thoughts, and from the unseemly urges the sight of his bare body provoked in her, Caddie searched for something—anything— to talk about. Dangerous silence cried out to be filled with words that must remain unspoken.

  “Now that our finances are on a more stable footing, I’d like to host that barbecue we talked about. Give the young folks in the neighborhood a chance to socialize.” Standing behind him, averting her eyes from his shapely backside, Caddie pulled Manning’s drawers up his legs and over his hips. “With your permission, of course.”

  She spoke with the excessive politeness Southerners reserved for their dearest enemies.

  “This is your house.” Was it her imagination, or did Manning’s voice sound a little higher in pitch than usual? “You’re free to do as you like with it.”

  Except come into his room at night. He didn’t say it, but as Caddie circled around and began to button the waistband of his drawers, the unspoken prohibition hung in the air between them.

  “In that case I’ll invite folks for a week from Saturday.” It would take a superhuman effort to ready Sabbath Hollow for company. Just the kind of diversion Caddie needed to keep her from mooning over this man.

  She struggled to keep her fingers steady as she fastened his shirt buttons. At the same time she tried to ignore the sheen of sweat that had broken out on Manning’s brow. He might not love her, and some streak of Yankee puritanism might make him keep her at arm’s length. But while he might not admit it, even to himself, he wanted her just the same.